Crime Stoppers of Houston gives out big money for solid tips

“Our Crime Stoppers is the largest in the country,” said executive director Katherine Cabaniss. “We arrest more felons and pay more cash rewards than any other Crime Stoppers organization.”

In the first three months of this year, Crime Stoppers paid $113,700 to tipsters whose information helped authorities arrest 198 felons, Cabaniss said.

At that pace, 2012 will be a bigger year than 2011, when the payout was $439,245 for tips leading to the arrest of 741 suspects.

Some Houston Crime Stoppers tips have led to arrests out of town. On March 13, Roberto Ramirez of Houston was arrested in Abilene, Texas, on a tip and was charged with aggravated sexual assault in a Houston case. On Feb. 22, a man followed a woman after she got off a Metro bus in the 5600 block of Old Spanish Trail, sexually assaulted her and fled with her clothes. Ramirez was in the Harris County Jail on Tuesday, according to online records.

“This is the new Crime Stoppers,” Cabaniss said. “We’re on the cutting edge of how to prevent crime in the future. You have to have resouces where you educate citizens to fight crime. Now it’s about community protection and citizen empowerment.”

Typically, Crime Stoppers of Houston offers rewards of $5,000, unless the payment is supplemented by other organizations, Cabaniss said. This reward amount is higher than the amount offered by many other Crime Stoppers groups around the country, including New York City, which pays up to $2,000 for information leading to the arrest of a felon.

While some Crime Stoppers groups pay rewards for information about misdemeanors, the Houston organization pays only for felony arrests, said Cabaniss, a former Harris County prosecutor.

“We seek tips and pay only on felonies, so all of our stats are truly for violent, dangerous offenders,” she said. There are a few exceptions for domestic violence assaults, which are misdemeanors, she said.

Since its 1981 inception, Crime Stoppers of Houston has paid about $9 million in rewards for information resulting in 23,000 arrests, including 24 offenders who ended up with life sentences.

One of the offenders sentenced to life was Timoteo Rios, 27, a Mexican national convicted in June, 2011, in the stabbing death of Tina Davila as she fought to protect her baby from a would-be carjacker.

Rios fled to Mexico, where he was arrested in August, 2009, on a Crime Stoppers tip. The agreement for his extradition specified that Rios would not be sentenced to death.

“This case is significant, because a tip to our tip line reached across the border to apprehend a violent felon,” Cabaniss said.

Last year, as it marked its 30th anniversary, Crime Stoppers of Houston passed the milestone of 30,000 crimes solved, Cabaniss said.

“Allowing individuals to report information anonymously has encouraged people to provide HPD investigators with crucial information leading to the arrest of some of Houston’s most wanted criminals,” she said. “It is a partnership that has helped make all the city’s residents safer.”

There are 146 Crime Stoppers groups in Texas and thousands nationwide, which are all independent organizations, rather than chapters of a larger entity, she said.

Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for any information called in to the 713-222-TIPS (8477) or submitted online at www.crimestoppers.org that leads to the filing of felony charges or arrest of a felony suspect.

Tips can also be sent by text message. Text TIP610 plus your tip to CRIMES (274637). All tipsters remain anonymous.